a domestic perspective

Back from Vacation!

We just came back from Austin, Texas where we spent the last week visiting my parents. Although we didn’t get any “down time”, we did have a blast and came back refreshed and ready for these last few weeks before the holidays! I also picked up tons of goodies to share in upcoming posts!

We spent Tuesday afternoon in downtown Austin on Lamar and hit up our favorite stationary store, The Paper Place. This shop is home to pens, pencils, paper, and lots of great novelty items! Next door to that is Central Market, a Whole Foods type joint that has a DELICIOUS restaurant/café attached to it and that’s where we ate lunch. Thursday night I got to see a favorite author, Mark Z Danielewski read from his new book The Familiar 2 over at another favorite place: BookPeople. Which is pretty cool because it’s an independent book seller.

Now that I’m back home I have some time to relax before getting back into the habit of life. While in Austin I picked up an “adult coloring book”. At first I thought they were silly, but after coloring in it for a few days, I have to say that it really is relaxing!!!

I’m using Prismacolor Verithins for a lot of the pictures. The guy at Michael’s that sold them to me was pretty snooty about them (“Nobody buys verithins…”), but I really like them for coloring.

I’m also using Stabilo fineliners and Crayola twistables!

The book I’m coloring is “Lost Ocean” by Johanna Basford. Lots of underwater critters and hidden pictures, which is why I bought this book. I like to find stuff.

I was a huge hater of the coloring thing, but I find that it really does release stress and soothes me. It’s something I think I’m going to do at night before I go to bed.